BIOS Updates forum

Hello,

I'm trying to "revive" an old Thinkpad 600E notebook. I can get into the bios, all tests run fine, and disconnecting the battery does not change anything (except loosing the date and time).

The bios does upgrade correctly the RAM amount if I remove/add memory. The problem is with the harddisk. I had put a 1.4GB disk in this unit, and if I put it back it boots OK.

However, any othe disk I plug in (so far I tested a 3GB Toshiba MK3205MAV and a 40GB Fujitsu MHT2040AT), the bios seems to see only the 1.4GB drive. The bios HD test gives no error, but no disk utility can create partitions on the disks.

I tried to reset the bios by unpluging the battery - didn't work. I'm open to any other suggestions.

Thierry de Coulon

Well you don't describe exactly how you boot/partition.

Normally you should boot with a Windows floppy disk. Use fdisk command to detect and partition the new harddisk. Use format command to format partitions. After that, you can install os from CD.

OK, so I'll be more descriptive:

I plug the new drive in the notebook
boot from the CD (I've done that with Win98, WinXP, various brands of Linux, and the Paragon Hard Disk Manager.
Whatever system I choose, I only "see" a 1.4GB hard disk. If I try to partition I get an I/O error. Both disks I tried with partition and format OK on all other machines I tested so its NOT a hardware problem on the discs.

Obviously, the bios is stuck with a 1.4GB hd definition and does not update it when a new disc is put in (it does see that there is no disc, by the way).

I've ordered a new cmos battery, in case this would be a strange case of low battery problem.

If I put back the 1.4GB disk (it has a stripped down XP version at the time) the machine boots OK.

Thierry

did you try to boot with a floppy disk?